91仓库

Many Japanese people are now nostalgic for the 1970s and ’80s, when the economy was booming and the culture had an exciting vitality and creativity. Think Pac-Man, Walkman and the “Sasori” action series starring Meiko Kaji as a fierce-eyed female prisoner out for vengeance against an evil patriarchy.

But as Taichi Kimura shows so rousingly and entertainingly in “Fujiko,” his dramedy about a striving single mom, the era was hardly an easy one for women.

Though the women’s liberation movement was then on the rise — the scrappy title protagonist (Yuki Katayama) even takes part in a raucous all-woman demonstration — male chauvinists viewed a stubbornly independent woman like Fujiko with alarm and disdain.

We first meet Fujiko in her native Shizuoka in 1982 as she is trying to sell insurance to a weary hotel cook (Lily Franky). Undeterred by his refusal, she launches into her life story, which begins on a stormy night in 1977 when she gives birth to a girl she names Mari.

She is unhappily married to a wimp under the thumb of his mother (the mononymous You), who resents Fujiko’s absence from her servitude at the family dry-cleaning business. When Fujiko insists she needs to take care of Mari, the terror of a mother-in-law and her loathsome daughter grab the baby out of her hands and force her back to work.

This Dickensian horror does not last: Fujiko’s spunky mom (Kayoko Kishimoto) marches into a meeting with the in-laws and, to Fujiko’s surprise, demands a divorce for her daughter.

This confrontation devolves into a comically choreographed brawl — and signals that “Fujiko” will be more populist entertainment than an exercise in arty miserabilism. The film, however, does not underplay the formidable barriers Fujiko faces once she has Mari in custody again and decides to dump the husband.

The journey to her present job as an eager-beaver insurance agent has both peaks and valleys. After a stint as a coffee shop waitress, she finds a gig as a cook at a gambling hall whose players look like the cast of a gangster film. But her snarling, scary customers tip well for her delicious yakisoba noodles, and she and Mari are soon living large and enjoying every moment of their newfound prosperity.

When cops raid the hall and Fujiko loses her job, a cantankerous but kindly old soba chef (Issey Ogata) who was her deceased dad’s friend offers her and Mari free meals at his restaurant — and the camera lovingly lingers on his appetizing fare.?

Instead of becoming his apprentice, as might happen in a standard foodie movie plot turn, Fujiko finds her golden ticket to financial freedom in insurance. But men around her try to steer her back to the safer waters of marriage.

Playing this woman-of-the-people character, Katayama seamlessly projects contending tendencies: She is tough and tender, fierce and fragile, resilient and reckless. And the actor reflects the energy and ambition of the era, as well as its discontents, to winning perfection.?

Kimura, who based his script on his own mother’s struggles, tells Fujiko’s story with an intimate understanding of her situation, while vividly underscoring its universal appeal and contemporary relevance.

The audience at Italy’s Udine Far East Film Festival, where “Fujiko” had its world premiere in April, gave the film a lengthy standing ovation and awarded it the festival’s highest honor, the Golden Mulberry prize. [The writer served as the festival’s programming advisor for Japanese films.]

In more ways than one, Fujiko (and “Fujiko”) prevailed.

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